One of the boys asked if it was raised all over India, or only in a small portion of the country. "The poppy grows in various sections of the country," was the reply, "but the greater part is cultivated in the valley of the Ganges, in a belt of country 600 miles long by 200 in width. About 600,000 acres are devoted to it altogether, and in some years nearly 700,000. Many of the opium farms belong to the Government, and the cultivation is under its direct management, while others are run on private account, and a heavy tax is imposed upon all the opium produced. "The English justify their wars to compel the Chinese Government to admit opium as an article of commerce, on the ground that a market for the drug was necessary for the existence of the British Government in India. China was the only market, and therefore the Chinese must not be allowed to prohibit the drug that was killing many thousands of their people every year, and making beggars and maniacs of many other thousands. England makes a poison, and her commercial interests will suffer if any possible market is closed to that poison; a weak nation objects to killing its subjects in order that English commerce may prosper, and immediately England makes war on that nation. 'You may choose your way of death,' England said to the Chinese--'perish at the muzzles of British cannon and rifles, or perish by admitting our opium. We are strong and you are weak, and we intend to secure the prosperity of British commerce, whatever it may cost you in the lives of your people.' "The net revenue from opium is about £10,000,000, or $50,000,000, annually. This money is raised on 100,000 chests, weighing 160 pounds each, and the tax on the article is considerably more than the cost of production. There has been much criticism among enlightened Englishmen of the means by which England raises her revenues in India. The total revenue from all sources is £50,000,000, or $250,000,000, in round figures, of which opium pays £10,000,000, salt £6,000,000, and land £20,000,000, while the rest comes from customs, excise, and stamp duties. You observe that opium pays a fifth of the entire revenue, and it is the struggle for this fifth of the revenue that has involved England in disgraceful ware. The land tax of £20,000,000 is a heavy burden on the population, and the salt tax falls on the poorer classes, to whom that article is a greater necessity than to the rich. [Illustration: COOLIES GOING TO THE POPPY-FIELDS.]